Paratextual Features and Functions: Mapping Amorphis Tales from the Thousand Lakes

674 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Concept of paratexts in literature

The notion of paratexts as “thresholds”, as thought by literary theorist Gerard Genette, was initially intended for analysing books. However, researchers have recently applied that knowledge to a variety of mediums. Birke and Christ (2013) investigate how paratexts function in DVD cases and digital literature. They propose that paratexts serve three main functions: interpretative, commercial and navigational. In this chapter I will draw on Birke and Christ’s functions to explore paratextual features present in the booklet of the album Tales From the Thousand Lakes, by Finnish folk metal band Amorphis. I will use some elements of macroanalysis (Jockers, 2013), a new approach to studying digital literature that combines human interpretation with computational analysis of key words and linguistic patterns. By applying that method, I will attempt to identify paratextual elements in the album’s booklet and understand how they bind the work to different historical contexts within Finnish culture. In conclusion, I will borrow some of Birke and Christ’s characteristics to approach an individual-focused perspective and propose three paratextual functions: perception, reception and contextualization.
Key terms: distant reading, paratextual functions, heavy music, Kalevala, album booklets, track lists

With the advance of technology in the contemporary world, the field of literary research is also facing the renovation of many of its theoretical frameworks. The implications of that form of restoration are overflowing both digital-born and traditional literature, especially when it comes to how texts are made available and accessible for a greater public. In such new media, materials are not completely context dependent, and may often appe...

... middle of paper ...

...resented at Encounters: refereed conference papers of the 17th annual AAWP conference. Available from http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theaawp/pages/87/attachments/original/1385085203/Hutton.pdf?1385085203
Jockers, M. L. (2013). Macroanalysis: Digital Methods & Literary History. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press.
Kallioniemi, K., and Kärki, K. (2009). The Kalevala, Popular Music, and National Culture. Journal of Finnish Studies, 13(2), 61-72.
Nottingham-Martin, A. (2014). Thresholds of Transmedia Storytelling: Applying Gérard Genette’s Paratextual Theory to The 39 Clues Series for Young Readers. In Desrochers, N. and Apollon, D. (Eds.), Examining Paratextual Theory and its Applications in Digital Culture (pp. 1-419). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Virtanen, L., and DuBois, T. A. (2000). Finnish folklore. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Show More
Related

  • Similarities between Protagonists in Rebellion against Family and Search for Identity

    1199 Words  | 3 Pages

    Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 6th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007. 743-749.

    Read More

  • A Parallel Between Two Worlds: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...

    Read More

  • The Role of Storytelling in The Things They Carried

    2570 Words  | 6 Pages

    Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.

    Read More

  • Comparison of African, Indonesian, and Indian Music

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the course of this semester, the several musical styles that have been discussed and analyzed have displayed various similarities and differences. These differences in certain musical elements have accounted for the distinctiveness and uniqueness of each style of music. The culture behind these countries’ music adds even more to their individualism. Cultural aspects such as religion play a huge role in the music of each country as well. Styles of music in Africa might be more upbeat than certain styles in India, for example. Some cultures use music in religion, while others may not. Aspects such as dance are important factors in all three types of music. Despite the differences and similarities, however, without music, these cultures would perhaps not be as fascinating and unique as they are now.

    Read More

  • Folk in Nationalist Music

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... music is more than just themes,” states Satsov, “In order to be national, to express the soul and spirit of a nation, music must partake of the very roots of the life of a people.” Folk music is essentially cultural property, whereas art music is intellectual property of a single person. When a composer removes national folk from the natural discourse in a culture in an attempt to isolate that flavor in a timeless work of genius, he fails to capture the true spirit of such a dynamic, communal idiom. Ultimately, such attempts are not “creative”, but “photographic.”

    Read More

  • Hawaiian Culture and Music

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    Miller, Terry, and Andrew Shahriari. World Music: A Global Journey. New York, London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2006.

    Read More

  • Narrative Structure and Point of View in Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch is not simply non-linear fiction, as the novel provides an early precedent for many of the characteristics found in contemporary hypertext fiction. Readers familiar with electronic hypertext fiction will likely notice the similarities in narrative structure, point of view, and the postmodern tenet of form contributing to content.

    Read More

  • Music as a Tool of Protest and Social Change

    1915 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Music is a common experience and a large part of societies. In fact, anthropologists note that all human communities at all times and in all places, have engaged in musical behaviours. Music as a mode of human activity is a cultural phenomenon constituting a fundamental social entity as humans create music and create their relationship to music. As cultural phenomeno...

    Read More

  • Moby Dick: Symbols To Draw Attention

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    Often in great works of literature, symbols are incorporated to add depth. These symbols make it more interesting to the reader by making connections from one idea to another. Herman Melville depicts a great number of characters and symbols in his 19th century novel Moby Dick. Melville uses symbols to develop plot, characters, and to give the reader a deeper interpretation of the novel. (Tucker) The author successfully uses the symbols of brotherhood, monomania, isolation, religion, and duality to make his book more interesting to its readers.

    Read More

  • Transmedia Storytelling

    2174 Words  | 5 Pages

    To date, transmedia theory and criticism has focused its analysis on the genres of science fiction and fantasy. This is mainly due to the abundance of opportunity to expand and create narrative paths provided by the types of stories popular to the genre. Geoffrey Long, in his master’s thesis, highlights the importance of a rich world in transmedia narratives (2007, 28). Christy Dena also describes the process of unraveling parts of a larger narrative in each medium of a transmedia story (2010, 18). Jenkins illustrates an example of the Wizard of Oz and author L. Frank Baum declaring himself “the royal geographer of Oz” (2009) We see JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, George Luca...

    Read More

  • Examples Of Transmedia Storytelling In The Harry Potter Saga By J. K. Rowling

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Back in 2003 Henry Jenkins caused a massive stir in the media world when he introduced the idea of transmedia storytelling, Jenkins describes it as a process where elements of fiction are dispersed across multiple media platforms in order to serve the purpose of creating a coordinated entertainment experience. Jenkins goes on to say that preferably, each medium will contribute different aspects which will assist in the telling of a story and unveil new aspects. However a good transmedia text does not simply supply information, instead it allows the fans, or fandom, to interact with the world within the text (Jenkins, 2007). This essay will arue that transmedia storytelling impacts on how the audience interacts with the story, in order to

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Graphic Novels

    1438 Words  | 3 Pages

    Graphic novels allow their readers to engage with its substance over multiple modes within one medium. This combination of text with visuals aids students in cultivates a greater understanding of the content by forcing them to slow down in the reading process. (Williams 13) The interaction between the images and written word encourages participants into reading in a non-linear patter counter to traditional text only formats. Graphic novels curate skills not normally utilized the reader’s interaction of the visual and written texts require time. Graphic novels have been compared to the language of hypertext, where this format (Cromer, Clark 575) is categorized of being “flexible and open ended, approached in multi-layered ways” (Cromer, Clark 575 This allows students the opportunity to examine both the interdependency of the visuals and how they relate to the text in the purpose of conveying the story allowing the to deconstruct. Students are increasingly participating in the ...

    Read More

  • Gulliver's Travels Literary Analysis

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are billions of books in the world, all with different plots and styles. However, the one thing they all have in common is that they all have literary devices. A literary device is any technique a writer uses to help the reader understand and appreciate the meaning of the work. Due to the use of these devices, books that would otherwise have nothing in common can be compared. For instance, the books Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and If I Stay by Gayle Forman have different plots and themes. But when both are examined closely, it is evident that they utilize many different and similar literary devices.

    Read More

  • Cyborg Imagination in the Age of Electronic Incunabula

    3509 Words  | 8 Pages

    In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray argues that we live in an age of electronic incubabula. Noting that it took fifty years after the invention of the printing press to establish the conventions of the printed book, she writes, "The garish videogames and tangled Web sites of the current digital environment are part of a similar period of technical evolution, part of a similar struggle for the conventions of coherent communication" (28). Although I disagree in various ways with her vision of where electronic narrative is going, it does seem likely that in twenty years, or fifty, certain things will be obvious about electronic narrative that those of us who are working in the field today simply do not see. Alongside the obvious drawbacks--forget marble and gilded monuments, it would be nice for a work to outlast the average Yugo--are some advantages, not the least of which is what Michael Joyce calls "the momentary advantage of our awkwardness": we have an opportunity to see our interactions with electronic media before they become as transparent as our interactions with print media have become. The particular interaction I want to look at today is the interaction of technology and imagination. If computer media do nothing else, they surely offer the imagination new opportunities; indeed, the past ten years of electronic writing has been an era of extraordinary technical innovation. Yet this is also, again, an age of incubabula, of awkwardness. My question today is, what can we say about this awkwardness, insofar as it pertains to the interaction of technology and the imagination?

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Discipline In Literature

    1862 Words  | 4 Pages

    When the study of literature is undertaken, critical acuity is vital. One has to be critically informed while dealing with literature as it involves many genres - drama, poetry, fiction. But in the recent times, we are witnessing a phenomenal growth in the understanding and analysis of studies that mingle varied disciplines. The importance of interlinking different disciplines together for purpose of better understanding is fast taking pace. This was not the trend some decades ago. Scholars, Mary Taylor Huber and Sherwyn p. Morreale have said that, “each disci¬pline has its own intellectual history, agreements, and disputes about subject matter and methods” and its own “community of scholars interested in teach¬ing and learning in that field.”

    Read More

More about Paratextual Features and Functions: Mapping Amorphis Tales from the Thousand Lakes

Open Document